Palestinian journalist, youth activist, human rights defender and prisoners’ rights advocate Hassan Safadi’s administrative detention – Israeli imprisonment without charge or trial – was extended for an additional six months by Israeli occupation forces on Thursday, 8 December. Friends and family of Safadi, the Arabic media coordinator for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, had anticipated his release until his detention was suddenly extended at the last minute.

Safadi, 24, was seized by occupation forces on 1 May while crossing the Karameh bridge between Jordan and Palestine’s West Bank returning from an Arab youth conference in Tunisia. He was held under harsh interrogation for 40 days at al-Moskobiyeh interrogation center in Jerusalem and then ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial after previously given a release decision. He was simultaneously sentenced to three months in prison for contact with an enemy state, for participating in a Palestine solidarity conference in Lebanon.

Safadi is one of dozens of Palestinian media workers and journalists imprisoned by the Israeli state, some like him without charge or trial under administrative detention. There are over 700 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial on the basis of “secret evidence” and 7000 Palestinian political prisoners.

The administrative detention order against Safadi followed the issuance of 19 such orders between 1 and 6 December, as follows below. 111 administrative detention orders were issued in the month of November.